Today, I want to talk about how to provide great customer service in your network marketing business. I truly believe that providing excellent “customer service” is one of the quickest ways to differentiate yourself from the competition and make more money in your business.
Most network marketers (and entrepreneurs) really mess this up.
Most business owners spend a lot of time, money and hard work to find a new customer.
I compare it to dating. When you are dating, you put your best foot forward. You treat the other person like royalty. You say and do the little things. You go the extra mile to make the other person feel special.
And it works.
That person becomes your boyfriend or girlfriend and eventually your spouse (in some cases). However, what happens in many cases is after you’ve “won the person over” you stop doing all of those little things that made them fall in love with you to begin with. Basically, you’ve “won your prize” and now you revert back to your normal ways.
The same thing happens in network marketing.
Many distributors will court their prospects and tell them all of these wonderful things to get them to join their team or become a customer. They’ll send thank you notes, make follow-up calls, take the person out for lunch, and genuinely make the person feel important.
However, once they’ve signed their name to the dotted line as a distributor, or purchased their first order, the distributor forgets about them to start courting their next prospect. This usually results in low customer retention and high turnover. Eventually, the distributor gets burnt out and quits the business.
Let me tell you something magical that can change your life.
The real profit in any business comes from repeat business.
Most businesses lose money on the first order when you factor in the time and cost to acquire a new customer. Finding a new customer (or distributor) who only orders one time and stops is a LOSE-LOSE proposition.
What you ultimately want is a large team of distributors and customers who order month after month, year after year. You want people who love the products, the business and like, know and trust YOU.
Now, you’ll never get everyone to be a repeat customer for life. But, I truly believe that you can find MORE repeat customers and long-term distributors by providing great customer service. This is what smart business owners focus on:
CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Other posts you may enjoy:
- Top 27 Customer Service Tips for Small Business Owners
- All Businesses Need New Customers and Must Keep Recruiting
- The Top 50 Reasons Businesses Lose Customers
Customer service is the glue that keeps everything together. It’s what makes people feel appreciated and entices them to keep ordering from YOU, rather than your competitor.
My goal in the rest of this post is to educate you about how to provide great customer service with your retail customers and distributors.
Let’s start with your distributors.
There are many things you can do with your distributors to keep them reordering each month and building their business. Here are a few things that come to mind:
- Build a friendship with each person
- Know their WHY
- Send out a monthly newsletter in the mail each month
- Send holiday and birthday cards
- Get together once a month or once every 90 days to socialize, celebrate and have fun
- Train the person on how to build a business
- Send a hand written thank you note several times per year
- Celebrate whenever they do something to move their business forward
- Recognize their achievements with awards, certificates, and gifts
- Educate them about the different products
- Help people on their team succeed
Doing any combination of these things can make a huge difference in your business.
When it comes to customer service with your retail customers, here are a few things that I suggest you do:
- Send out a monthly newsletter in the mail each month
- Send holiday and birthday cards
- Send free products samples in the mail
- Create a customer loyalty program
- Call your customers once each month
- Send a hand written thank you every time they place an order
- Create a paid referral program
- Educate them about the different products
Can you see how these little things would make a big difference with retention in your business?
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, having a good product, service or business opportunity is not enough. You have to remember that customer service is the glue that holds your business together. What you want to do is go the extra mile and make each customer and distributor feel important and feel appreciated. If you can do that, you won’t have to worry about repeat orders.
Any questions? Comments? Just leave them below and have a great day!
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Sincerely,
Chuck Holmes
Network Marketing Professional (21+ years)
Top Recruiter & Top Rep
mrchuckholmes@gmail.com
I feel that great customer service is the key to success in any business, whether it’s an MLM or a retail store. A business will not survive long with bad customer service, no matter how great the products are.
You not only want to provide over the top service, but you should also stand out. Be different by going above and beyond to make them feel special and create a relationship with them. Know and call them by name, remember a special occasion they have coming up, such as an anniversary, birthday, etc.
Mail birthday cards or simply wish them a Happy Birthday. Go the extra mile for your loyal customers….
In another company I was with I was able to provide a free product on that special occasion/ because they purchased a certain amount/ or just because (with no money out of pocket). Great customer service and consistency is the key to any success!
Yes, customer service is vital if you want to succeed in network marketing. It’s easy to find a customer or recruit someone one time, but if you want high retention you need to go the extra mile. Keep your customers happy and make them feel important. Otherwise, they will take their money to another business that makes them feel that way.
When it comes to retail sales and customer retention providing excellent customer service is a must. People do business with people they like and trust. I like your courtship analogy because it is so true. You have to continue to do what you did to get them in order to keep them. I like birthday clubs and paid referral programs. Customer loyalty plans work great when things are going well. However, when there is a problem with a product or a service, you need to be quick to address the issue and reassure them that they made the right choice by buying from you. It is hard to overcome a negative experience so make it your goal to minimize the negative and make sure there are many more positive experiences for your customers to share.
Do the little things if you want to keep your customers as loyal customers.
Customer service is very important.
As we gain more and more customers and representatives, this can actually become a daunting task. I recommend a software program such as Microsoft Excel in keeping track of all of this. Each day you will want to check your program and see if there are any birthdays coming up, or other milestones the person has reached. You will also want to set a regular schedule of just contacting previous customers.
If all businesses would do this, they would find more respect which would bring more business.
Great post Chuck.
Yes, you definitely need a system to track your leads and monitor your progress. Getting and staying organized is very important.